Lead Me On

by Victoria Dahl

  “Why?” he asked, shocked that a man would do that to his mother. He’d give anything to have his mom back.

  “Grandma Olive told her son that his wife dressed like a blind whore.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Which might have been forgivable if she hadn’t announced it during a toast at their wedding reception.”

  “Yikes.” A horrible thing for the old woman to have said, but Chase found himself snorting with laughter.

  Jane’s lips were pressed tightly together, but he could see that she was about to burst out laughing herself.

  “You have to admit she’s pretty funny.”

  “All right,” Jane answered. “I’ll give you that. But the woman made my life a living hell when I was a teenager.”

  Chase tried to imagine Grandma Olive in the same room with young Dynasty Alexis and shuddered. It would not have been a peaceful pairing. “Well, she likes me,” he said proudly.

  Jane sent him a sideways look as he opened his truck door for her. “I guess Mac’s tattoos have finally worn her down. A few years ago she would have ordered you to go scrub that nonsense off your neck or get out of her sight.”

  “I take it Grandpa didn’t have any ink?”

  “No,” Jane said. Her eyes glittered with mischief. “But she’ll go on and on about what a nice round bum he had if you ask her.”

  “She would not!”

  “Au contraire. She says you could bounce a quarter off it. Tight as a drum and perfect for gripping.”

  Chase slammed her door, then shot her a glare when he slid behind the wheel. “If I think of Grandma Olive the next time a woman digs her nails into my ass, I’ll never forgive you.”

  She finally let her laughter free, and it was a beautiful thing. Rich and husky and full of naughtiness. Damn, she was sexy. But he still couldn’t reconcile her with that troubled young girl. If he’d had to guess what had happened to Dynasty, he would have envisioned her walking down a very ragged road. High-school dropout. Kids with different fathers. Drinking and drugging and a parade of useless men.

  He’d graduated high school when she was only fourteen. When had she cleaned up her act? And why? He didn’t dare ask her. She didn’t seem to realize that he was Billy Chase. Hell, she might not even remember Billy Chase. And if she did…

  Jane was clearly a woman who’d separated herself from her past. She wouldn’t appreciate a stroll down memory lane.

  Now that he knew her secret, Chase felt as if he should be closer to understanding her, but instead he felt his grasp on Jane Morgan slipping away. She was more of a mystery than ever. And he was more fascinated than ever.

  He didn’t ask about dinner again. He simply drove back to Aspen and pulled up to his favorite Thai restaurant. When she didn’t protest, Chase felt sadly thrilled, and he had to wonder if Jane was even harder on his self-esteem than she was on his body.

  Oh, hell. He wasn’t complaining. Yet.

  JANE’S MOUTH WATERED at the unrelenting scent of spices that permeated the restaurant. She’d forgotten lunch again, and though she should have insisted Chase take her home, she couldn’t bear the thought of throwing together a healthy tuna salad with fat-free dressing. She needed spice and heat and the richness of coconut milk. She needed curry. And chicken satay. And maybe just a few spicy shrimp, as well. And, most of all, she desperately needed a mai tai.

  She had no idea if Chase’s father would be able to help, but somehow she felt lighter, as if she’d left part of her burden behind along with those files. Chase had warned her not to expect anything from his dad until tomorrow, because he’d start drinking early and simply fade away as the evening wore on. But somehow that was freeing, too, knowing that she’d hear nothing tonight. She could let it go for a few hours and simply wait.

  But the waiting revealed her exhaustion, not to mention her gnawing hunger.

  When the satay arrived, Jane jumped on it, wondering if Chase would notice if she took three skewers and left him with two. Someone had to eat the odd one out. Probably he’d be too polite to mention it. Way more polite than a guy with tattoos on his skull should be.

  The peanut sauce was a wave of flavor in her mouth, and Jane sighed as she swallowed the first bite.

  “So,” Chase said, “how did Mac become your stepfather?”

  Even the pleasure of the sweet sauce couldn’t stop her stomach from freezing. “He married my mother,” she answered coolly.

  “Yeah, I got that part. Did your parents get divorced?”

  “Yes.” She piled slivers of cucumbers on the chicken before taking too big of a bite. I’m busy here, buddy. Can’t talk.

  “How old were you?”

  Jane took a long drink of her mai tai and shivered with relief. “I was two.” She grabbed a shrimp that set her mouth on fire, and had to gulp down a bit more of the drink.

  “Wow, that’s really young.”

  “Have you tried the shrimp? It’s perfect. This place is amazing.”

  “It’s my favorite restaurant. Aside from that burger place off Main. They use thick-cut bacon. Man, do I love bacon.”

  Smiling, she sucked at her straw, startled when it started gurgling. Lifting the glass high, she glared at the last traces of pinkened rum.

  “Another?” Chase asked.

  “Yes, please,” she answered immediately, determined to keep the muscle-melting feeling progressing. For the first time in days her tension was gone. Actually, it hadn’t been days at all. She’d felt pretty melty after sex with Chase in his truck.

  She reached for another shrimp and realized there was nothing left on the plate but a lettuce leaf. Her disappointment floated away on a smooth river of rum.

  “So did your dad stick around?” Chase asked as the waitress delivered their entrées and another mai tai.

  “No.” She took a big bite of red curry and chased down the heat with mai tai. Heaven. Spicy Thai heaven.

  “He left?” Chase asked.

  What were they talking about? Oh, right. Her sorry excuse for a father. “He was in prison.” She took another bite and another drink.

  “Oh…I see.”

  “No.” She was slurping at the bottom of the glass again. Where in the world had all that mai tai gone? She set it down and started to laugh. “Chase, you couldn’t possibly see. My mother was…Jesus, I don’t even know what she was. Let’s just say that my childhood was spent moving from prison town to prison town.”

  “Following your dad?”

  “No, he stayed in one place. My mom collected lifers.”

  Chase shook his head, fork paused halfway to his mouth. “Lifers?”

  “She was a prison groupie. She married guys in prison. Four of them, to be exact. All of them men she met after they’d been sent to the big house. You are looking at the tender outcome of a conjugal trailer visit.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, did I say that out loud?”

  “Yes,” Chase murmured, voice quiet with shock.

  His slack face made her giggle. And then it made her collapse with laughter. “Oh, boy,” she squeaked. “Your expression is priceless.”

  “Your mom collected prisoners?”

  “Oh, yeah. Like pound puppies.” She wiped her watering eyes. “It was quite a colorful existence for a kindergartner, let me tell you.”

  “Jane,” he said, his face falling from surprise to worry, “how often did you move?”

  She shrugged. “Whenever she got tired of visiting that man, she’d start writing to another. My dad was the first, though, so I guess that makes him special. God, is it hot in here? Whew. I’m hot.”

  “I think it might be a combination of liquor and curry.”

  “Oh, crud. Really? That’s embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as going to school with the children of your stepdad’s prison guards, though. Can you imagine?”

  “No,” he said over her snort.

  She took a deep breath and tamped down her laughter. “I don’t know why I told you all that.”

&n
bsp; “It might have to do with that first drink you sucked down.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed, just before regret hit her smack in the face. “Chase, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. About the drinks.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Not that again. It’s fine. Get falling-down drunk. I promise not to call AA. And while you’re tipsy, is there anything else you want to get off your chest?”

  Alarm sank deep into her bones. One more drink and maybe she’d spill it all. Not just the bad stuff her mother had done. That was easy to lay out on display. Her childhood had hurt, but it hadn’t been her fault. She’d been blameless…until she’d turned twelve and started making her own mistakes.

  “Jane…”

  “Nope,” she lied. “That’s all I have. Everything else about me is unremarkable. Boring. No need to ply me with more drinks.” Which was unfortunate. For a moment there, she’d considered getting seriously blitzed.

  Chase’s head tilted slightly as he looked into her eyes, a furrow appearing between his brows. Fear wormed into her stomach at his look of confusion, but she talked herself down. He’d grown up in Grand Junction. He knew nothing, and she wouldn’t tell a soul.

  Still, the puzzle turning behind his eyes scared her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You just…” His eyes fell to the table. “You confuse me.”

  “No, I’m simple,” she insisted. “This stuff with my family might be complicated, but I’m not like them. I’m different.”

  “Is that why you’re with me, Jane?”

  “I’m not with you.”

  “Yeah, I got that. I mean, is that why you’re having a fling with me, instead of dating like a normal person? Because I remind you of them?”

  Her mind rolled, turning over, picking up speed. She knew what it was, but she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say, That’s who I really am. A woman who needs a big, rough man. A sad young girl who needs to be used so that she feels wanted. Someone who believes a man’s not really a man if he doesn’t have scars on his hands and dirt ground into his jeans.

  She couldn’t say that, because now she was a woman who believed in refinement and education. She built relationships on respect, not on physical attraction. She measured a man’s worth by his ambition and intelligence and bearing. Not by the way he handled himself in a fistfight. Not by the width of his shoulders.

  “Maybe I’m having a midlife crisis.”

  “You’re twenty-nine.”

  “Right. I’m twenty-nine. I’ll settle down soon. Get married, have kids. So before I turned thirty, I thought I’d find out what it was like to walk on the wild side.”

  “Oh, really?” he huffed.

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t add anything more—he just watched her—and for some reason his silence made her squirm. Jane breathed a sigh of relief when the waitress approached and left the bill on the table. Change of subject. “Let me get this.”

  “No, I got off pretty easy on our so-called date. I was having trouble living with myself.”

  Yes, she’d been a cheap date. Burger, Coke, screw in the truck. That made her think of just how fun it had been to feel cheap. Maybe he’d make her feel cheap again tonight. Like old times. She attempted to slide him a seductive look, but it disintegrated into a yawn.

  “Come on, Jane,” he said, reaching for her hand as he stood. “You look like you’re about to slide to the floor.”

  “No, I’m fine,” she insisted, despite the way her knees swam when she rose. “I’m getting my second wind.”

  “Mmm-hmm. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?”

  She smiled flirtatiously. “You’re not telling me I look tired, are you?”

  “You look exhausted. You’ve got dark circles under your eyes, you’re yawning and two mai tais nearly put you under the table.”

  “Did not,” she scoffed. But when he helped her up into his truck, Jane melted into the seat. Okay, maybe she was exhausted. And tipsy. But she didn’t want to be dropped off and left to drag herself to bed. Being tipsy seemed like the perfect excuse to have sex with Chase again.

  It still seemed like a good idea when she blinked awake a few minutes later and found Chase opening the passenger-side door. “Hey,” she breathed, stretching awake.

  “Your keys?”

  She dug around in her purse and handed them over, thoroughly enjoying the way he took control. He slid her off the seat and walked her up to her door as if he owned the place. Despite another yawn, she was already anticipating what they’d do once they got to her bed. Sure, she’d meant it to be a one-night stand, but the man transformed her body, as if she were Sleeping Beauty awakening from a long, dry slumber.

  Chase guided her through the door. “I’ll call as soon as my dad gets in touch.”

  “Hmm?” She spun back toward him, one hand reaching for the wall to steady herself.

  “Get some sleep, Jane.”

  “But it’s six-thirty.”

  “Right. Sleep for twelve hours and get a fresh start tomorrow. It’ll be good for you.”

  “But—”

  “Good night, Jane.”

  She was still staring openmouthed at the door when she heard him drive away. Trying to puzzle out what had happened turned out to be too much work, so Jane took Chase’s advice and just went to bed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JANE MORGAN WAS LOSING IT. She was losing it, and she was losing it at work.

  This couldn’t be happening. She was a master at her job. An impervious wall of professionalism and knowledge and absolute control. Jane was her job. It was the best part of her, and that had been a comforting thought until now.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Jennings,” she said again. “It’s got to be here somewhere.”

  “It’s really no big deal. You probably already sent it to Edward.”

  “No!” She realized she’d raised her voice—actually yelled at her boss—when he took a step back. “I mean, no sir, that’s not possible. I never, ever send out files or sketches or blueprints without making a copy first. Never.”

  “Okay, but I—”

  “Oh, my God,” she yelped. “What day is it?”

  “Um…I think…” He looked up to the ceiling, waiting for his mental calendar to spit out an answer. “Thursday, maybe?”

  “Thursday,” she murmured. “Thursday the fifteenth.” Her fingers hovered over the files for a moment before they clenched into sudden fists. “Thursday the fifteenth. Seven-thirty breakfast meeting with the head contractor for the Gramercy job.” Air pressure pressed into her. “I didn’t…I didn’t remind you. Did you miss the meeting? Please tell me you didn’t miss the meeting.”

  “It’s okay.” Mr. Jennings held up his hands and took a sidestep toward his office door. “No big deal. He called and I apologized and we’re meeting for lunch tomorrow.”

  “You have lunch with Edward Cohen tomorrow!”

  “Just change it,” he said, and darted for his door. “Ed won’t mind. It’s okay.” The latch clicked softly closed behind him as Jane’s heart beat faster and faster.

  She was disintegrating. Every piece of herself that she’d so carefully constructed was peeling away like ancient wallpaper. First she’d slept with the type of man she’d assiduously avoided for ten years. Then she’d cried at her workplace. She’d been caught in an embrace by her boss. Then the typos. The getting drunk over Thai food. And now…now the lost project proposal. And worst of all, she’d caused Mr. Jennings to miss an important meeting. She’d embarrassed and inconvenienced him. She’d failed.

  Her purpose in this office was to keep exactly that sort of thing from happening. It was the reason Mr. Jennings had brought her in. It was why he paid her well and told her he couldn’t live without her.

  This job was her confidence and her pride and her self-worth. The only thing in the world she was good at. Without this job, she was just a girl with a high-school diploma and an expensive wardrobe. She would not let this slip away.


  “Where is it?” she muttered, glancing one last time through the open file drawer. The proposal didn’t stick its head up and wink at her, so she slammed that drawer and moved on to the next.

  “It’s got to be here. It’s got to.” At some point her brain poked her in the back of her spinning head and told her she could reconstruct most of it from Mr. Jennings’s computer files, but that wasn’t the point.

  Fifteen minutes later Jane was at the last cabinet, hands shaking as she flipped through every single file, when she found it. She found it. Filed under E for Edward, instead of C for Cohen. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, clutching the proposal to her chest.

  “Jane?” a female voice asked from the front door.

  “I found it!” Jane said as she swung toward Lori Love.

  “Good! That’s really great.” But Lori didn’t seem to understand just how much relief Jane was feeling, because her voice sounded downright strained.

  Jane got up from her knees, still clutching the papers to her chest. “Sorry, I lost something. Whew. Now I have to order a basket of cookies for a contractor. Contractors like food, right? That should smooth things over. Mr. Jennings is in his office, by the way. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  “Wait,” Lori said. Her brown curls swung when she let the front door close behind her. “I’m here to see you, Jane. Quinn called me. He’s worried.”

  “There’s no need to be. It won’t happen again. I’m mortified, but—”

  “Jane.”

  She shut her mouth in response to Lori’s serious tone.

  “You remember how screwed up my life was last year?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “So when I tell you I can recognize the signs of a woman falling apart, do you think you can trust that?”

  Hmm. This was a more difficult question to answer, because Lori was obviously about to point out that Jane was falling apart. “I suppose it depends on the woman.”

  “Jane.” Lori was a no-nonsense kind of girl and her voice made clear she wasn’t interested in coddling Jane.

  “Yes?” She wanted to hold the papers for a little longer, but she made herself set them neatly on her desk before wiping her sweaty hands on her chocolate-brown skirt.